The Final Victim

Saw an interview with a Dr. Mikowitz today. She’s an immunologist (and something else) and has written a book, “Plague of Corruption,” about how the scientific establishment has been twisted into a money machine, and how those in the machine will do anything to keep it running, and if people die in the process, too bad. Fucking up and covering up. Denying the success of drugs developed in the lab so to find ways to make money off it when it goes public. Mikowitz is an ex-employee of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the man everyone’s looking to as the beacon of light during the crisis. According to Mikowitz, he’s anything but. He’s part of the machine. She related the story of how Fauci tried to force her to hand over material related to a project she was working on (or something like that) and after some back and forth, she was arrested for theft of government property and hauled off to jail. Never charged. No trial. Nothing. Just kept her in prison. And she didn’t steal anything, either.

She also gave some insight about how viruses work. It didn’t come from a bat in some wet market. It was something that escaped from the Wuhan lab, a project that had the full participation of the CDC and the Army. She said she wouldn’t call it “created,” but it’s not “natural.” A combining of several different viruses. If it had been natural, it wouldn’t have spread the way it has so quickly.… Continue reading →

The writing’s great, full steam ahead. The Moreva of Astoreth is with the betas–sent it a full 5 days ahead of schedule–and The Final Victim zipping along. I’m close to finishing it. If it’s not finished next week, it’ll definitely be finished the week after that ’cause I’ll be on vacation. I’m doing a video shoot for a friend. Advertising for her, exposure for me. Win-win.

I have to let my sweet, lovable Daisy Mae cross the Rainbow Bridge. What’s hard is she’s not sick. She’s got plenty of spirit. But her body is failing her. Her spine and hips have deteriorated even more since November. I have to help her up the stairs. I usually have to help her onto the bed. She collapses a lot. I can get her on her feet, but it’s so painful to watch. Tonight I let her out, and went to let her back in about 5 minutes later. I didn’t see her. I stepped out onto the porch and saw her on the ground, struggling to get up. She managed to do it before I got to her, and I helped her up the porch stairs. A couple of weeks ago, I had to go out and my housemate did, too. I was gone for about 2 hours, and got home before he did. Daisy wasn’t on the bed, which was unusual. I walked into my office and she was on the floor with… Continue reading →

So I’m writing my novelette, The Final Victim. Feels good to be creating again.

After the nightmare that was 2018, late last spring I decided I was well enough to tackle author stuff. I knew I wasn’t at the point where I could write, so I thought I’d edit my previous works. Start slow. The updated versions of The Underground and Invasion are on the market, and The Moreva of Astoreth is getting there. Damn, did that one need a LOT of work! I cut myself slack because it was my second novel, but there’s no excuse for my arrogance in thinking it didn’t need editing. Won’t make that mistake again. After going through it, I’m really surprised it got as many good ratings as it did. Right now I’m letting it rest, and will pick it back up next week. I was going to say at the beginning of the year, but that’s next week. I’ll do a final round of edits, then send it out to betas. I’d thought to have it out by mid-January, but the beta reads is going to delay that. If I give the betas three weeks, it should be ready by the end of February, if not before. While TMOA is out, I’ll take up The Final Victim again.

Writing it is going better than I’d hoped. Of course, it helps that I already had the basic story, three chapters that I’d pulled from The Underground. I guess you could say I’m just… Continue reading →

I’ve never planned for the future because I’d always hoped that for me, there wouldn’t be one. Despite all my best efforts, I’m still here so decided to give it a go.

My overarching goal this year is to complete two books, The Final Victim and When Gods Die. I think it’s possible because The Final Victim will likely end up as a novelette, maybe 25-30,000 words. The basic story is already written and all I have to do is flesh it out. It’s a companion piece to The Underground, told from the elves’ point of view. It won’t be a rehash of The Underground’s action–more like parallel. Like “this is what was happening over here while Parker, Melera, Garrett and Kurt were doing their thing over there.” One scene in The Final Victim will intersect with a scene in The Underground, but that’s it. If all goes well, it’ll be out by the end of February. I’m pretty sure that’s doable but I’m also sending it to betas. I used betas once before and it was a really bad experience but after talking to and reading other authors’ advice, I’ll give it another try. I’ve got two who’ve said they’re willing, so here’s hoping they can do a fast turnaround. I want to release When Gods Die in late summer or in the fall. I’ve got like the first three chapters written. It’s a start.

So I’m hard at work with this author thing. Took a rest from editing The Underground manuscript. I finished editing, but I want to go over the 1st 10 chapters or so to make sure I’m happy with the text. For the last go-round, I was working off the formatted copy where I’d highlighted changes I wanted to make, but around 10 I saw I needed to make changes that weren’t highlighted–i.e., the ones I missed. On the formatted draft, if I didn’t see yellow highlights, I passed over the corresponding text on the Word doc. Got to make sure it’s fine and dandy because I ain’t doing this again. Yes, the nice thing about self-publishing is that if you see something funky, you can pull the book and re-work it but it’s best not to fuck up in the first place. I cut myself some slack because there’s been a long learning curve, but I’m far along enough now that I know what NOT to do.

While I’ve been resting from editing, I’ve been working to build my author platform. I’m concentrating on Twitter at the moment, interacting with people, letting folks know I’m out there. It’s working. Still, I have some concerns. It seems that most of my new followers are also authors. Nothing wrong with that in and of itself but I don’t want to be author-heavy. What I want are people who are potential or actual readers to follow me. My fellow authors are not the… Continue reading →